"I could only understand a bit of the book we found when we came in the Keep."
Terry Goodkind.
Now surely he meant to say "when we entered the Keep."
"came in the Keep." I think its a disgusting thing to do in an old building. There are laws against that kind of thing!
[This message has been edited by Heimdall (edited February 02, 2002).]
If so, I'm going to have to shut it down.
If, on the other hand, we can turn it to what Samuel R. Delany calls "subjunctive tensions" such as (my favorite)
"As the family sat at breakfast, the morning sun came in the window."
or
"Her eyes dropped to the table."
then we can continue.
(By the way, OSC talks about these when he talks about speculative fiction writers having to be careful with metaphorical wording in his HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY.)
It annoys the hell out of me to read a good book only to find the author making lazy mistakes that he/she thinks that they can get away with making or being so lazy that they let their own modern way of speaking enter that of a character from 1000 years to 30000 years ago.
would you want to read:
"Gee, I really did think it were better to come in the keep than goddamn it look out the window!"
It really winds me up! Who said "Gee" in the dark ages. Who really wants to come in a keep and you cant look out a window. You can look out from one, through one, out of one but to Look out a window sounds to me as if one is about to fall on your head!!!
[This message has been edited by Heimdall (edited February 02, 2002).]
[This message has been edited by Heimdall (edited February 02, 2002).]
he ought to change the name to
"How to write Science Fiction and a few words about fantasy as well."
IMHO.
Then again, that's not a grammer problem, just a style problem.
Then again, again, the problems that you're talking about aren't grammer, but syntax. It's grammatically correct to say "came in the keep" but it doesn't necessarily mean "came into the keep" (i.e. entered the keep) and seems to say "came within the keep" (which has innocuous meanings as well, as 12:30 can come in a keep and does so twice a day without causing any sort of scanddl).
In any case, I fully support you insofar as concerns the language the author employs, but the language the characters employ may be whatever is consistent with the character being depicted as saying it...
Which means that we are back to style problems, since I agree that the phrase is egregious. I don't think that I would have found it believble or engaging as a component of dialogue for a literate, scholarly character.
For my own opinion on the relation of SF to fantasy, read elsewhere.
quote:
By the way I bought Orsons book and was annoyed to find that it has only a very tiny percentage of matter relating to fantasy
Interesting... I found the emphasis on fantasy and the soft sciences to detract from the book. Remember his quotes in the world-building chapter poking fun at the science-so-hard-it-goes-crunch crowd? (Of which I count myself a pround member.)
Can't please everyone, eh? On the balance, though, well worth reading.
I think the emphasis was on the soft sciences as a sort of midway point, rather than either hard sci-fi or fantasy. I write all of it, but apparently I'll need to look elsewhere for advice on the two 'extremes'.
careless errors, on the otherhand, get on my nerves. it's a matter of the author's intention.
JMTC
TTFN & lol
Cosmi
PS: sorry i don't have time to elaborate.
Forgive me, I can't remember where or when or any other details about this incident, except that OSC mentioned in the same article that he was in the middle of a "all-Diet-Coke-no-food" diet and was also, after some time spent locked away in this particuarly intense workshop, beginning to miss the presence of other Mormons.
Peace
policy